Previously: A suck and blow mystery.
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Samantha: Tessa scrambles away as Hardin slams Dan’s head into the grass. She wonders if he would have also slammed his head into concrete and thinks the answer is yes when he starts smashing his face with his fist. She begs Jace to stop him, but Jace is just amused and offers her a drink. He also mentions that this has been coming between the two for awhile. Hardin keeps beating on Dan and no one steps in to stop it, they’re just enjoying the violence.
A wild Zed appears and Tessa begs him to stop it because, and I quote “If Hardin keeps hitting him, he will kill him. I know it.”
So we’re just… admitting and accepting that Hardin is definitely capable of murder? Like. “Yep, this man I love could definitely casually beat someone to death. What’s new on Netflix?”
Marines: I was sick to my stomach in sentence one when she casually admitted that she could totes see Hardin slamming a whole human’s face into concrete. As casually as if she were admitting like “I could see him owning a dog one day!” By the time we get to “someone stop my murderer boyfriend,” I wanted to crawl under something and hide from this book.
Samantha: Zed grabs Hardin’s shirt and hauls him off of Dan. Hardin goes to punch Zed, but he grabs his shoulders and says some de-Hulking stuff or something.
Tessa doesn’t go over to him because she knows he’s furious at her. He’s panting and stuff like a wild animal, her description. “I know that he would never physically hurt me.”
Let’s look at the facts.
1. You are afraid to walk over to him after watching him beat a man, because of how angry he is.
B. He is constantly manhandling you and grabbing you against your will.
Cat. The fact that you have to stipulate “physical” because you know too well that he will emotionally is not a great sign.
Mari: She also clarifies that “I’m not afraid of Hardin the way I probably should be.” UM WHAT? Why *should you* be afraid of your significant other? I mean, I’ve read the book. I know why, but it’s actually more disconcerting when Tessa/the author acknowledge that they have read this book and know why as well!
Samantha: Wooooooooooow, good point.
Jace helps Dan up. He yells at Hardin a “fuck you, Scott” and “Just wait until your little-“ before Jace tells him to shut up. Tessa finally wonders what Jace meant about this coming for awhile. Hardin yells at her to go inside so she obeys and runs into the house. I am afraid for her.
She runs up to Hardin’s room and realizes that she forgot to lock it. Someone has come in and spilled something red on the carpet. She frantically tries to clean it up when Hardin comes in. She explains what happened, in FEAR, and takes a step back when he steps towards her. She thinks about how this is all her fault because she didn’t follow his orders and good god this is sick. This reeks of abuse. Remember how she said she wasn’t too afraid of him a page ago? Lies, Tessa. Lies you’re telling yourself.
Mari: None of this would’ve happened had she just stayed alone in a room while her boyfriend was downstairs at a party? He suddenly wouldn’t be the kind of man that would kill a man with his fists? NO. Tessa is just trying to convince herself that she can check his behavior with her own, not realizing that if it isn’t this he gets angry about, it would be LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE. BECAUSE TESSA’S BEHAVIOR ISN’T THE PROBLEM.
Samantha: She physically flinches when he grabs the towel from her. His eyes flash with confusion, and he wipes his knuckles. Tessa is confused because she has been conditioned to expect yelling and throwing things and instead he is freezing her out. She begs him to talk, and he tells her that she doesn’t want him to right now. He starts yelling about how she doesn’t listen and smashing his fist into a dresser. She says that he doesn’t get to just tell her what to do, and he yells that he was trying to keep her safe and out of the mess like what just happened.
Oh, fuck off. I also think Tessa should have stayed in the room, mainly because her only reason for leaving was Molly paranoia. Which, while valid, wasn’t a great reason. But you can’t just order her around! You didn’t give her any explanation or context. Just “don’t” and “they’re bad”. Hardin keeps yelling about her joining the game and her “crazy obsession” with Molly. Tessa doesn’t say but does think that it’s rich coming from a boy who just almost murdered a man for kissing her. He goes on that if she has a problem with Molly, she should also have a problem with basically all the girls downstairs. She’s flabbergasted, even though she knew he slept with a lot of girls, and thinks that this is too much because of how he threw it in her face. Not the almost murdering a man and physically scaring her, just this thing he’s already thrown in her face before. He tells her to go because she can’t stay here.
She leaves the room, having no idea how to get home, and makes it to the bottom on the stairs before Hardin grabs her shirt, and I wonder about the black hole that is this book. He asks her to come back, and she asks why. He has no time for reasonable questions so he just grabs her backpack and walks back to his room. She follows him, of course, and he backs her up against the door when she gets in there. He then apologizes, but like why is he pinning her to the door to apologize? He pushes his hips against hers and what the fuck kind of apology is this? What? What a weird freaking mash up.
Mari: An aggressive sexy threat apology is not a thing, Anna Todd.
Samantha: He says that he loses his temper sometimes (oh really?) and that he hasn’t really slept with every girl downstairs. He says that he’s trying to be better for her and he’s sorry for scaring her when he beat up Dan. She says that she wasn’t scared of him and I hate that I know exactly what Twilight scene this is pulling from. (When Edward killed Victoria and thought Bella was gonna be terrified of him but she was like “nah.”) (M: Cool girlfriends are chill with murder.) She said she only was a little when he grabbed the towel but she was mostly scared for him.
He’s all “he didn’t even get a hit on me” and she clarifies that she was scared he’d murder a man in cold blood and go to prison because “You could get into a lot of trouble for assaulting him.” He laughs at her, but in a way that’s supposed to be endearing (it isn’t). He then starts listing all he ways she disobeys him and inconveniences him and annoys him, but in like a sexy way, you know? (M: Nope.) Tessa describes it as a “light verbal assault” (M: Jesus Christ.) and that he probably actually really likes this stuff about her.
I thought maybe that we were fading to black but I peaked at the next chapter and it does not, so, sorry Mari.
Next time on After: Angry sex, I guess, in Chapter 85.
I'm a 28 year old graduated English major and almost librarian. I can often be found singing too loudly (poorly) in the car or spending some time (hours) on Tumblr. I am a lover of Harry Potter, the Spice Girls, and too many other things.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
